


The Truth Is So Boring

by withthepilot



Category: Star Trek (2009)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Prostitute, Angst, Character Death, M/M, PTSD, Prostitution
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-30
Updated: 2010-12-30
Packaged: 2017-10-14 05:56:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/146109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/withthepilot/pseuds/withthepilot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bitter and broken off the heels of a rescue mission gone spectacularly wrong, Sulu goes looking a distraction. He finds Jim.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Truth Is So Boring

**Author's Note:**

> AU where Kirk never enlisted and ended up turning tricks at some remote starbase. Sulu is the jaded pilot on shore leave. Mentions of major character death, prostitution, angst.

Earth. Sulu almost forgot what it smells like here: the rich scents of soil and the first plants he ever learned about when he was a child, before he could fathom the idea of flora from other planets and solar systems. It's much better than the stench of death that he's become accustomed to. His start in Starfleet hasn't been exactly auspicious, what with a failed mission to save Vulcan that ended up in half of his fellow crew members getting killed. Some of them were lucky enough to make it, but not all. He's still haunted by the face of the young navigator, Chekov, so fiery and so brilliant—all of that talent now lost to the stars.

Sulu thinks _lucky_ might not be the best term for his particular situation.

They're back on Earth while Starfleet tries to recover from the sheer devastation of it all, in the hopes that their surviving cadets can regroup and come to terms with what's happened, considering that no one in their right mind is going to enlist after such a major catastrophe. Sulu's been going to joint therapy sessions with that crazed doctor, McCoy, who's got a major case of PTSD and can't stop babbling for a second about the dangers of space. _Yeah_ , Sulu always wants to spit at him, _like we don't fucking know._

He's tired. He's angry. He wants to find something beautiful and destroy it. Or maybe just fuck it until it howls.

After the session finally ends, Sulu heads to the bar that's closest to this starbase, figuring that if he can't fuck something, he might as well drown the anger with liquor—scotch or maybe lots of beer. He keeps his head down, his regulation boots scuffing against the gravel as he walks.

"Hey," he hears, and someone grabs him by the arm and pulls him aside. He looks up and comes face to face with exactly what he's wanted: something blond-haired and blue-eyed to fuck. And he's pretty. He smirks and licks his lips before he speaks. "What's your rank?"

"I don't have one," Sulu answers. He was all set to be a lieutenant but at this point, there's so few of them left, they might very well make him a captain. Fuck, but he hopes they don't make him a captain. "I was on the _Enterprise_ for a day."

The guy tilts his head and though his features barely move, Sulu thinks he sees a flash of sympathy in those blue eyes. He's so fucking tired of sympathy. But then he only says, "You need me to take care of you?"

Sulu's only got fifty credits in his pocket but he doesn't say as much, only nods in return.

"I know a place," the man states. He motions toward his bike and Sulu follows him.

It's a seedy motel, the décor screaming of some style that's at least a century old, but Sulu isn't bothered. As soon as the door of their room shuts behind them, he grabs the guy and pulls him in for a rough kiss, biting at lips that seem too plump for a man's face. Jim—the name he gave on the ride over, who knows if it's for real—lets him be rough, giving back to a certain extent but allowing Sulu to maintain control. Sulu squeezes Jim's bicep and feels the muscle flex involuntarily beneath the golden skin.

"I recognize you now," Jim gasps between kisses. He's already started to undress Sulu, pulling off the top of his cadet's uniform and tossing it away like it's rubbish. "From the news. The pilot, right?"

"I guess." Sulu frowns and watches as Jim works on his uniform trousers next. He doesn't feel like much of a pilot, considering that he flew the ship for all of a few hours before half of it got destroyed. "Why?"

"You were great out there. If not for you, everyone would have gotten killed."

 _It was a technicality_ , Sulu wants to say, _a mistake_. He grits his teeth and grabs Jim by the shoulders, pushing him down to his knees.

"Just do it already," he grits out.

Jim looks up at him plaintively before he wraps his hand around Sulu's cock, leans forward and gets to work.

He's good, that's for sure, good enough to make Sulu forget, even just briefly, about the chaos his life has become. When he shuts his eyes, he sees black instead of red for once, and he tugs on Jim's thick hair in appreciation, pulling harder when he starts to moan around his cock. Jim's hands are strong around Sulu's thighs as he sucks expertly, until the point that Sulu has to drag him off his length before he comes too soon and can't fuck him—and god, he really wants to fuck him.

"Take off your clothes and get on the bed," Sulu orders.

Jim pulls off his worn leather jacket and then crosses his arms over his torso as he removes his discolored T-shirt underneath, too. Sulu feels his mouth water a bit at the sight of sculpted hipbones peeking out above the waistband of low-slung jeans; he realizes he's staring when Jim smiles at him, then shucks those off as well. And he has a fucking beautiful smile, this guy, but it grates at Sulu's frayed nerves somehow.

"Don't fucking laugh at me. I said, get on the bed."

Jim puts his hands up and furrows his brow, his expression turning serious. "Hey. I'm not laughing at you, okay?"

"Just do what I tell you to do," Sulu says, looking away. When he lifts his head again, he sees Jim on the broken mattress, kneeling on all fours, looking back at him.

"Come on, then," he says. Sulu meets his gaze and nods.

He doesn't have any lube, so he sucks on his own fingers for a while and then eases them into Jim, who grunts and takes them with his head bowed. It occurs to Sulu, as he scissors and curls his fingers inside of Jim's tight heat, that Jim must have his own lube handy somewhere, if he does this sort of thing regularly. But he can probably see right through Sulu—probably knows all too well that Sulu won't be satisfied until he hurts someone. Hell, if he looked in the mirror, it'd probably be all over his face—if he could look in the mirror.

When he pushes inside Jim, he doesn't go easy or slow. It's hard and rough and nasty and fast and Jim wails like a banshee the entire time—most likely for Sulu's benefit, though it does have to hurt—and it's exactly what he needs. He grips Jim's limbs and hips with enough force to leave bruises and shows him the force of his anger in his thrusts. On the _Enterprise_ , he was impotent at best, helpless to do anything but watch the bridge of the fleet's most celebrated ship crack and burst around him, like a child's toy under a bully's heavy foot. Here, he takes control, pounding into Jim relentlessly as the sweat drips from his brow down into his eyes, static buzzing in his ears until it's overpowered by the sound of Jim begging and pleading for his touch, for his mercy. Sulu reaches down to stroke him once and Jim comes almost immediately, his body going taut as he sobs. Sulu drops his forehead to the vast plane of Jim's sweat-slick back and stops trying to hold it in. Just stops.

After, they lie beside each other on their backs, their chests heaving. Sulu rolls onto his side to fetch his trousers and the credits in his pocket, handing them to Jim.

"This is all I've got," he says. He feels a little sheepish; he's willing to bet Jim usually charges a lot more than fifty. He definitely deserves more for what he just allowed Sulu to do to him. Jim looks at the credits and takes them with a shrug, holding them tightly in his hand as he folds his arms behind his head.

"S'fine," he says. His voice is hoarse from yelling. "Cadets never have much money on 'em anyway."

"Then why hang around at a starbase?"

"Because you guys need me. You're all on edge." Jim looks at Sulu and gives him one of those brilliant smiles again. This time, it doesn't grate so much. "If I'm not going to enlist, the least I can do is spread my legs and think of the Federation, right?"

Sulu laughs for the first time in weeks. It's a strange feeling, like relearning something that used to come naturally.

"We could probably use you now that the fleet's been decimated."

"Shame," Jim says. He yawns and gazes up at the ceiling. "If only someone had noticed it was a replay of what happened to the Kelvin. Bet you it would have gone down a whole lot differently."

"How do you know about that?" Sulu asks. Jim just shrugs again.

"I know a lot of things. Seems to me things weren't going well over there to begin with if no one could do their homework."

"Yeah, well." Sulu fights a scowl as a fresh surge of annoyance wells up. He doesn't know all of the ins and outs of what happened—no one does yet. Jim can't just chalk up the senseless death of thousands of cadets and officers to a fucking misplaced comma. "If you're so damn smart, why don't you put your money where your mouth is and enlist, hotshot?"

"I would if I thought anyone there would want me." He sniffs and runs a hand through his hair. "Plus, it seems boring."

"Yeah. That's exactly what I'd call watching a seventeen-year-old kid bleed out in the chair next to you while you can't do anything but try to steer a broken ship to safety. Boring. Dullsville."

Sulu shuts his eyes and waits for Jim to say something smart-mouthed in return; when he doesn't, he sits up and throws his legs over the side of the bed, as if to go. Then he's ensnared by a pair of strong arms around his shoulders, a gentle voice in his ear.

"Hey, man. I'm sorry. Really. You don't fucking know how sorry."

Jim tucks his nose in Sulu's hair, right behind his ear, and the pain bubbles up in his chest in a way it never does in his useless therapy sessions—a raw, ripped-apart sensation, grief and guilt attempting to claw its way out of him. Sulu lets out a stuttered breath, leans back in Jim's arms, grips the edge of the mattress.

"What's your real name?" he whispers. Jim's eyelashes brush against the shell of his ear and he shivers.

"Still Jim. Yours?"

"Hikaru Sulu."

"Okay, Hikaru Sulu, I'll tell you what. I'll enlist tomorrow morning."

"No, _don't_ ," Sulu gasps. Immediately, all of the horrible things that could happen to Jim spring to mind. And hell, he's heard stories; he knows damn well that bleeding to death with shards of glass sticking out of one's body is probably one of the _better_ ways to go. He can't just let Jim put himself in danger like that, stand by as he willingly throws himself into the void like his life doesn't matter. "You can't, Jim. Promise me you won't."

"Hikaru, I—"

" _Promise me_ ," he demands.

Jim doesn't answer, just holds him tighter. And whether or not Sulu will see him at the starbase in the morning in cadet reds come morning—if Jim is actually crazy enough to go through with it, and he seems like he just might be—he's content to simply sit with him and consider the idea of rebuilding a life that's not framed by death. Just this one feeling—a stranger and his kind embrace on an otherwise unremarkable evening—is a good enough start.


End file.
